by Gina Evers ’05

The mouths of three rivers salivate
as a December moon bears down onto the horizon.
I watch the old man cloak, uncloak.
Here, he says, they call this mid-winter.
"Mid” because many names for cold
help make the stillness bearable.
My eight-year-old mother stands
against another lakeshore, her Christmas dress
buttoned into brown with white trim, her hand
enveloped in the gloveless palm of my grandfather.
I am floating in a capsized coffee table.
My grandmother’s red and black blanket is my sail
strung between two of the legs.
On the other side of the water, a moon is crowning
I plunge my arms in, I paddle faster
with frozen fingers, my little mother
there on the shore. The second full moon this month,
my grandfather yells after her, a sign of good fortune
coming in the new year.